This week's best things
Icelandic horses, the fallout from the cyber attack on the British Library, AR-assisted learning, the danger of digitising everything, the evolution of language, and the best of Bob Mortimer.
OutHorse Your Email
I think this may be a few years old now but I've only just stumbled across it.
"Disconnect from work and let the horses of Iceland reply to your emails while you are on vacation. (Seriously)".
Includes a specially-built, horse-friendly keyboard.
Explore the impact of The Wild Escape in our evaluation
Art Fund have published the evaulation report that they commissioned The Audience Agency to do on their 'The Wild Escape' education project.
'The Wild Escape' took place through the first half of 2023 and was "a major project which brought together over 500 museums and thousands of young people to explore the subject of UK biodiversity loss".
There was a significant (and quite beautiful) digital strand to the programme (designed and built by PRELOADED, which won a Lovie Award).
I think there are a couple of interesting findings in the report. Firstly that "82% of families said that their experience of The Wild Escape activities had made them more likely to visit the same museum again in the next 12 months, and 77% said that it had made them more likely to visit other museums in general", underlining the potential of joined-up, multi-channel programmes to deepen relationships with audiences (both with specific institutions, but also with museums in general).
And secondly that "73% of museums, galleries and historic houses connected or built relationships with organisations outside their sector".
The Disturbing Impact of the Cyberattack at the British Library
A fairly deep-dive into the cyberattack that the British Library suffered last autumn, and the ongoing ramifications.
"The effect on the B.L. has been traumatic. Its electronic systems are still largely incapacitated. When I visited the library last Monday, the reading rooms were listless and loosely filled. “It’s like a sort of institutional stroke,” Inigo Thomas, a writer for the London Review of Books, told me."
Fingerspelling
A realtime, AR-assisted way to learn American Sign Language that uses your webcam to teach you.
This a really clean, smartly designed experience. That's gamified just the right amount in my opinion.
Lots in here for cultural organisations to ponder.
The Danger of Digitizing Everything
A thoughtful and important piece in Wired about 'over-digitalisation' and digital access.
"In all cases, many people—some elderly, others with access needs, children, anyone who just doesn’t fancy constantly looking at their phone—will be pushed toward more useless screen time and away from the kind of brief, friendly interactions with other humans that help us all feel part of the fabric of life. We’ll have reached the point of overdigitization."
Whilst I absolutely do think there are thresholds that we should be talking about in terms of where 'too much' exists, I think that line is likely to vary hugely from society-to-society.
For example, it was interesting to read this from my new home in Sweden, an almost-cashless, highly digital society where social interactions with strangers are avoided at all costs.
New words are spreading faster than ever—thanks to teenage girls
The evolution of language is fascinating, and often first observed in digital spaces.
This piece in National Geographic looks at the important role of women, and specifically teenage girls, in driving that change.
"Women lead up to 90 percent of linguistic changes, sociolinguist William Labov observed in the early 2000s. In fact, he wrote, women are often linguistically ahead of men “by a full generation.”"
Rachel Fobar
The best of Bob Mortimer
I spotted this tweet yesterday which asks "What’s your favourite Bob Mortimer clip?"
If you don't know Bob, he "is an English comedian, author, television presenter and actor. He is known for his work with Vic Reeves as part of their Vic and Bob double act, and more recently the Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing series with Paul Whitehouse".
Anyway, I think Bob Mortimer is wonderful, and hilarious, and almost every reply to that original tweet contains a link to something brilliant.
This was a favourite...